Recent content by mrchicken

Had my first infection/failure (see Chocolate Stout tastes of vinegar). Likely culprit Acetic Acid Bacteria most likely from a fruit fly. So how do you guys brew in the summer time and keep unwanted boogers out of your beer? In our area fruit flies & gnats are common from late April until...

Lefou, Bingo! The beer flavor was thin but it had a sour bitter taste when siphoning to my bottling bucket. Now, where did the infection come from? I am very meticulous about cleaning and sanitizing. Boil remove from heat, then ice bath in sink, pour into cleaned and sanitized fermenter...

Had a Midwest oatmeal stout kit (5 gallon). Thought I would chocolate it up a bit. Added 6 oz of cocoa powder to boil, then added 6 oz cocoa in about a quart of bourbon to fermenter. Left in primary for 4 weeks at 68 degrees. Looked fine bottled as normal. Its been in the bottle 3 weeks so...

Well it smells like beer in the fermenting fridge so its doing something ! So far so good?

Brewed a Midwest Oatmeal Stout kit last weekend and wanted to add chocolate to the profile. So I added about 2 oz of powdered cocoa to the boil. At flame out I added 8 oz of cocoa powder mixed into about 10 oz of 80 proof whisky. This morning it occurred to me that I had just jump started the...

Following ! Sounds exactly like what I have been looking for. Low bitterness, high in creamy sweetness, good chocolate profile.

Ill bottle it up and see how she goes. Is there a chart somewhere that has ideal temps so I can cross check recipes with the strain of yeast? I was following a clone recipe, but I guess their temp was off.

Thanks Yooper! Ok. The recipe on BYO said 68 degrees for 10 days then 14 days at 40' to clear, add DME to prime and bottle. I guess mid 60's is too warm for ales ? :-(

Have an Alaskan Amber (ale) clone in the fermenter (day 14). Popped the top to check gravity and got a strong fruity smell. ??? I am used to yeasty smells, malt, beer, hops but not fruit from an straight Amber ale. Temp on day 2 of fermentation hit 71.2' so I put the fermenter into a...

Im going to find a "perfect" weight of corn sugar through experimentation and then make that my go to for priming. As to how much CO2 remains in solution, I THINK it would depend on time and temp AFTER fermentation stops as part of the equation. Open a beer and let it sit out, carbonation...

You guys are awesome! I am learning a ton !

Probably a dumb question but.... How does the max temp during fermentation affect CO2 in solution after primary? I would think that an unpressurized fermentor would loose CO2 as time passes and the beer temp at BOTTLING would be far more accurate a measure of how much CO2 remains in the beer...

Ok I have been racking my brain and asking a bunch of questions on my poor carbing issues. Been using the northern brewer priming calculator. Today I bottled my ale kit that came with my fermentor. It had 5 oz of corn sugar for priming. When I checked it against the norther brewer priming...

I used the Midwest priming calculator it said .88cup corn sugar for 3.2vol. Boiled water and added sugar. Turned off heat after 2 minutes at a vigorous boil and let cool while I got all the bottles ready. Put sugar in bottom of bottling bucket and racked beer into it with a circular flow...

Ok so two batches in a row, carbonation has taken 2-3 weeks and was still weak. Used the midwest brewing priming calculator and used close to a cup of corn sugar to prime both 5 gallon batches of hefe. It was suggested that I didn't have enough active yeast after racking to secondary to...